


the more things change

by lesbianedgeworth



Category: Trollhunters (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen, blinky runs from consequences but not from free food, book!aaarrrgh but like she existed in the show universe as aaarrrgghh!!!'s mom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-23
Updated: 2018-02-23
Packaged: 2019-03-23 03:07:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13778361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesbianedgeworth/pseuds/lesbianedgeworth
Summary: One ordinary night in the dawn of the 15th century, Blinky meets ARRRGH!!!. No, not that one.





	the more things change

**Author's Note:**

> a sort of sequel to the events of "aaarrrgghh's mom has got it going on", but context isn't really necessary. this would be old trollmarket, as opposed to new trollmarket, where they at least attempted to plan it out.

Trollmarket was nothing like home.  

The center of the massive cavern was dominated by the Trollmarket Heartstone, bathing everything it touched (and it touched everything) in warm orange light. The rest of the city spiraled outward from the heart, petering out at the edges like the jagged spokes of a demented gear before vanishing into tunnels carved starkly into the walls. They led, Johanna had been made to understand, to outlying settlements.

Natural limestone walls were long since reinforced with sturdier stuff, and over the many centuries since the Founding countless artisans had stamped their marks onto haphazardly scattered pillars and shiny metal supports; although there was likely reason to the madness Johanna’s weak and inexperienced eyes couldn’t see.

Shards of glimmering enchanted crystal and stone lined nearly every available surface, each unique pinpoint of light contributing to the city’s brilliant chorus. Even the foundations of the city seemed designed to confuse and bedazzle the eye—the newer buildings had been stacked carelessly onto the bones of the old like children’s blocks with little thought to how badly the styles would clash. A roaring river cut a wild path through the outlying districts, zigging in and zagging out and under buildings and bridges and a patchwork cobbled road before vanishing to depths unknown down a dark pit. A trash dump, if the smell meant anything.

The crown jewel of settlement was the city’s namesake: the Trollmarket market, a constantly rotating menagerie of stalls and traders eager to hawk their wares. Discerning customers bargained and bartered for exotic charms and reasonably priced cat while gnomes dodged from shadow to shadow in numbers that could only be described as an infestation. Smoke (from cooking pits and lanterns and ominously belching machines alike) drifted hazily in the air, mingling with the scent of troll and garbage and gnome droppings.

No, Trollmarket was nothing at all like the dark and quiet caverns of Johanna’s youth, well planned and well maintained and peaceful.

A pretty dump is still a dump.

She’d arrived the night before the last, trailing awkwardly behind the Trollhunter and her small entourage. Even she didn’t know why she’d bothered: not for the promise of a hot bath or warm metal on her aching wounds, though the offer had been accepted graciously enough. She’d managed before, and Deya (title yet unearned) was hardly the first Trollhunter to extend a branch.

Something about her…

Merlin’s champion was earnest, yet. Johanna could no longer remember a time when she hadn’t felt jaded to the bone.

She shook off the melancholy. Time spent pitying oneself was time wasted, though she’d woken up to more of it then she knew what to do with. She’d spent the day (and night) after arrival dead to the world, taking full advantage of the brief assurance of safety to sleep off the worst of the battle fatigue. Upon waking the Trollmarket elder— a middling troll named Vendel she could faintly remember from better days past—had greeted her with a not unkind but audibly tense request of purpose. She’d shrugged. Vendel wasn’t satisfied with the answer, but Deya had chosen that moment to arrive and Johanna had ambled off; content to let the two of them argue it out.

She wandered for a hazarded twenty minutes before discovering the exit of what she assumed to be Deya’s home. Large and pleasantly cool, the rooms lay on the very outskirts of Trollmarket proper, cut into the caverns great walls. While it branched on the occasional detour to hidden nooks and tucked away closets, the layout was deceptively linear: one room by and large lead to another and so on until you hit the back end (a dusty but well stocked library) or the entrance (a large and arched doorway studded only occasionally with the bright lights Trollmarket favored). It was a bit too snug for Johanna herself, but most things were-- and she’d found the minimalist décor tasteful, especially backlit by the hodgepodge calamity of the city beyond.

If the place had any fault it was that Deya’s scent was easily overpowered by a layered patchwork of countless older trolls, some of whom Johanna recognized. It seemed a new Trollhunter received more than command of Daylight when their predecessor passed into the Void.

She discovered a bathhouse, eventually. The odds of one not being near the Trollhunter’s dwelling had been slim, but she was still faintly pleased to be proven correct. The steamy room—all copper and lights, but at least they were dim this time—was occupied when she entered, but any troll that saw her was suddenly in a great hurry to leave.

Johanna was confused for the minute it took her to remember _why_ she needed to bath-- the thick and viscous substances plastered to fur and stone alike were, while mostly unidentifiable, clearly of Trollish origin. She sighed.  

Soft little civilians.

One bath later she shook herself dry and rolled her aching shoulders, joints loudly complaining. Exposed to the open air her injuries stung, but none of them required immediate medical attention, and she was— _famished._ How long had it been since she’d had a warm meal? Too long.

Goal in mind, Johanna exited the bathhouse and headed inward, toward the twin hearts of Trollmarket (literal and figurative). The first settlers had established the original market at nearly the base of the Heartstone itself—and despite time and the steady creep of the city beyond, that much hadn’t changed.

It was…easier, to narrow her focus to the hum of the Heart in her bones and navigate by that. Trollmarket was loud, in every sense of the word. Barely a handful of hours inside its limits and she’d already acquired a throbbing headache; old head injury pounding in time to a mad drummer’s beat. 

She rubbed the ghost of it absentmindedly.

Patches of mane on the back of her head had grown back spotty over knobby, scar-knotted skin, but time had stolen away the most obvious signs of damage. There were worse outcomes to taking a boulder to the head, but it still…ached, and her tongue would never, she suspected, regain its quickness.

Lost in thought, she only avoided collision by virtue of the fact most trolls aren’t stupid enough to get in her way. Being the largest troll in the room—or in the winding, cobbled road—had benefits.

Something small and compact rammed painfully into her right forearm. 

…Most trolls.

Unamused, she plucked the wriggling creature from the ground and raised it to eyelevel.  Six wide disgruntled eyes glared back, overlarge on a blue face that still retained the chubby cheeked roundness of youth. Wriggling limbs (four arms, two stubby little legs) struggled against her grip before giving up; prioritizing keeping a lumpy, oversized satchel clutched tightly to his chest.

“Rude,” Johanna rumbled. “Whelp.”

“Rude?” The whelp seemed affronted. Aghast. Insulted to the core. “ _Rude?_ You were the one dozing off on the road, you great, great, lummox!”

“Still rude.”

Johanna suspected he was trying to kick her hand.

“CEASE! DESIST! REMOVE YOUR CONSIDERABLE APPENDAGE FROM MY PERSON!”

The headache intensified, every individual tinny shriek a chisel to the brain.   

“Yell,” she said, “not help.”

Another shriek, but a half-hearted one, and the boy took her advice (though it seemed to visibly strain him). She fought the urge to rub her temples.

“Better.”

“Can I go now?” Rude and impatient. Did all whelps get like this? An image rose, unbidden, of another boy: small and green but larger now, growing into his skin, and maybe rude—

The vision disappeared, tucked away for a later day. Not tonight.

“Maybe,” Johanna replied. She rolled words around on her tongue, searching for the right turn of phrase. “Say sorry.”

The expression on his face was positively mutinous. “Only,” he said, “if you do first. It wasn’t my fault!” He stared her dead in the eyes, but blinked first, and backtracked.  “Er. Not _entirely_ my fault, that is, but—but I’m not wrong! So there. You apologize too and we’ll call it square.”

She conceded the point with a nod.

“Okay. Sorry, whelp.”

He looked surprised, she thought, like he hadn’t actually expected her to take him seriously. Another second passed and the mildly shocked expression on his face morphed into huffy embarrassment. “Well,” he said, “you should be.” He paused. “I am very sorry for running into you. That was impolite.”

The sincerity was doubtful, but there was nothing left to do short of tracking down his guardians, and it wasn’t _that_ big of a deal. She set him down and patted a tuft of wild blue hair gently.

“Watch out.”

It didn’t come out the way she wanted it too, and she frowned, once again searching for the right turn of phrase.

“Could get…” She hummed. “…hurt.”

There it was. Oddly enough, it only seemed to make the boy more nervous.

Three suspicious eyes kept a careful lock on her as he edged away, out of what he likely assumed to be her reach. Not true, but there was no reason for her to prove otherwise. Satisfied he’d cleverly evaded her grasp, he spun around, heading back the way he’d came at the same helter-skelter pace as before.

If the foolish boy ran into someone less forgiving then her, it was on his own head.

Johanna ambled forward, once again in hot pursuit of—cat? Yes, cat, warm and juicy, maybe charred—when the boy burst back into view, scuttling between a group of harried looking mountain trolls.

“HEEEEELP!” he wailed, narrowly avoiding a repeat collision with her arm. Frustrated, she caught him by the suspenders.

“Whelp stupid!” she growled. “Stupid! Run and hit, yes?”

“NO!” he shouted. “Not that! Please, I, um, I humbly request you remove your paws from my vestments, or, or,” he looked like he was about to cry, and Johanna felt bad despite herself. He undoubtedly deserved whatever was coming for him, but. Crying. Bad.

Whatever it was, it was approaching fast; Johanna could hear distant shouts rising above even the constant Trollmarket din.

“Or hide me! PLEEAAAASE!”

He really, truly, almost certainly deserved it. All she had to do was hold him still until whatever judgement was coming arrived.

Hmmph.

Carefully, Johanna lifted him to her shoulders, rocking onto her heels and shifting so her back faced one of the buildings bordering the street. “Hold on,” she said. “Fall hurt.” He listened—gratefully, she hoped—and clutched tightly to her mane, the contents of his oversized satchel…wriggling? against her side.

Odd.

It wasn’t a scent she could properly identify—something like sea salt, maybe—and she was owed _several_ explanations for this, all of them good. 

Down the road the whelp’s pursuer burst through the cluster of mountain trolls, who were even less amused at being bowled over then they had been when the boy had first scuttled underfoot. The newcomer was a large troll, with a look in his eye that made it clear he wasn’t above using his copper prosthetic as a weapon. Bone-white horn nubs stood out clearly from his scalp, as dull red as the rest of him.

 “ _GALADRIGAL,_ ” he howled, “I KNOW YOU’RE HERE _.”_

Galadrigal(?) shuddered, and his culpability in this mess aside…she frowned.

For a moment she thought the angry troll might pass her by entirely, but he skidded to a halt at her feet, having—presumably—identified her as the tallest troll in the area, and perhaps the most likely to have seen where Galadrigal ran.

“You,” he huffed, catching his breath. “Have you seen,” another deep breath, “a whelp, one of them Conondrum’s— you know, with the arms, and the eyes-- maybe this tall?” He raised one of his arms in a fair estimation of Galadrigal’s height. “Blue. Carrying around a bag, or a sack—almost larger than he is, and _full_ , because the little shit _walked away with my merchandise._ ”

Johanna shook her head. Behind the angry shopkeeper(?) one of the trolls who’d seen her hide the whelp raised a furrowed eyebrow, an expression she returned in kind. They (wisely) did not correct her assertion, and troll in front of her continued gesticulating, exchange unnoticed.

“Damn,” he growled. “Damn.”

He sped on, leaving Johanna—and the object of his pursuit—in the dust.

“Oh, wow.” Galadrigal swung precariously from her mane, but Johanna caught him by the waist before he could attempt to jump on his own. She set him down gently, before sitting down herself.

An explanation she was owed, and an explanation she would get.

Galadrigal (at least) seemed heavily pleased with himself. “Our meeting,” he crowed, dusting off his smart suspenders, “was splendiferous!”

Johanna stared.

“…splendidly fortuitous….?”

“Lucky,” she said.

“That works.” Humming, he readjusted the strap of the contested oversized satchel. It seemed their previous ‘feud’ had been forgotten. “We didn’t introduce ourselves the last time we ran into each other, did we? My name,” he extended two arms congenially, “is Blinkous! Blinkous Galadrigal.” Blinkous blinked, one eye after another. “You may call me Blinky.”

Johanna briefly considered picking up the whelp and shaking him until he explained what he’d stolen, but accepted one of the hands instead, delicately shaking the appendage.

“Bliiiinkyyyy,” she enunciated, tasting the shape of it, before gesturing to herself. “Johanna.”

“Thank you kindly, Johanna!” Blinky spun around, as if to walk away, which... no, he wasn’t _._ Snorting softly, Johanna extended an arm and blocked his path of retreat.

“Blinky explain.”

Some of the tension returned to Blinky’s small shoulders.

“Must I—”

“ _Explain_ ,” she reiterated. Her stomach growled loudly. “Not here. We get…cat.”

Blinky perked up again. “Oh,” he grinned toothily, “if you say so!”

Satisfied with their arrangement, Johanna once again set off—hopefully for the last time-- to the market proper, Blinky jogging cheerfully by her side. His pursuer long behind them, he seemed satisfied to wander and jabber informatively about whatever neighborhood they found themselves in. She suspected the free food had something to do with the ease of his tongue, or else he’d be long gone (or trying very hard to be).  

The warm tug on her bones increased insistently as they approached the Heartstone, breaking through the edges of the rollicking, boiling core of Trollmarket. She’d asked Blinky if he could direct them to anyone in particular, but he’d only shrugged-- the market was neither stationary nor predictable, even to the trolls who lived there.

They passed rows of human instruments, delicate stringed things, most broken and smashed beyond repair but pretty, still.  

They passed a band of rogue goblins hiding in the shadows, playing a complicated game of cards over a gambler’s pot of severed doll heads and squealing gnomes.

They passed clear, roiling jars, filled to the brim with mysterious multicolored liquid that reeked of magic and mysticism. ALL ITEMS MUST GO, read a carefully painted sign. In smaller letters: THE EMPORIUM IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR INJURY, BAMBOOZLEMENT, OR TRANSMORGIFICATION.

Panes of delicate glass, sturdy metal armor, swords bigger then Blinky was tall, parades of cheerfully drunk warriors, and piles upon piles of thick looking books Johanna had to physically drag the whelp away from—the market had it all and more, beautiful and ugly and dizzying and altogether too much. Her jaw ached from the pressure of grinding her teeth.  

Something tugged her arm, more corporeal then the Heart. She grumbled. Four little hands pulled more insistently. “Johanna,” Blinky said, not a shout but getting there. Every troll in the area was struggling to be heard. “If I can, hm…” He paused, likely flipping through a mental dictionary of words he found impressive. “If I can convince you to feast your voluminous eyes on that sign over yonder?” He pointed, and she turned to look.  

CAT. PREPARED TO ORDER.

Mmmm.

The stand was crammed between a burly looking troll hawking what could be GENUINE HUMAN BONES (they weren’t) and a delicate, hooved lady presiding over a pile of REAL MYSTIC CHARMS (they were). Four stools in a row sat in front of a flat counter, cordoning off a small kitchen area where a short green troll presided over several bubbling pots and an open fire. Only a tuft of wiry and vertical black hair poked above the counter, but Johanna possessed a superior vantage point then her small companion. 

She eyed the stools cautiously before nudging two of them out of the way of the counter, sitting down on the floor. Blinky took the stool to her right, stubby legs too short to reach the ground swinging wildly with childish glee.

“And what,” the cook drawled, “can I get’cha _._ ”

“Cat.” Johanna replied. The cook eyed her incredulously. “…Bob,” she added. “Bobcat. Smoky. Whelp want…”

“Tabby!” He grinned, all tombstone teeth and tusks. “Bloody, if you please.”

The cook wrote something down, before raising her gaze to meet Johanna’s eyes. “What’cha gonna gimme for it?”

It was Johanna’s turn to grin. “Ser-vi-ces owed,” she replied, mindful of the syllables. The cook seemed willing to argue the point, at first, but broke the staring contest after a few seconds—and Johanna laughed silently as the other woman shuffled nervously from hoof to hoof.

“Fine,” she hissed, and hustled away to tend to the meat.

Blinky was looking at Johanna with an expression approaching awe.

“You,” he said breathlessly, “are _so cool_.” He frowned. “Magnificent,” he appended. “Stupendous.”

“Like big words, huh,” she snorted, and if Blinky were human he likely would have blushed.

Shifting slightly Johanna eyed the satchel at the center of it all— it was, now that she was properly looking at it, absolutely wriggling. Blinky eyed her eyeing his prize and clutched it a fraction tighter.

“I suppose,” he allowed, “that I should. Explain?”

“Yes.” Johanna gently poked the bag, and Blinky visibly repressed the urge to snatch it away.

“Okay.” Blinky sighed. “If I _must._ ”

Clever fingers unlatched the belt that fastened the satchel shut, gently prying it open. The bag shifted again, revealing…

Johanna blinked.

The gently waving tentacle cautiously probing the exterior of the bag refused to disappear.

She blinked again, to no avail.

“ _Octopodes,_ ” Blinky chattered, and if he was aware of his companion’s incredulity he ignored it. “Her name is Tub, because I found her in one.” Another probing tentacle detached itself from the unknowable mass in the bag. “They were just going to eat her; can you believe it? She is _not,”_ he gently nudged it back into the safety of the bag. “a _feline_. The waste! The gall!”

“You…” Johanna paused.  

“Yes?”  

“Need water.”

Blinky scoffed. “I _know_ how sea…creatures…work….”

He frowned. Stared at the very dry bag. Frowned again.

“Oh,” he said quietly. “Oh no.”

“Water.” Johanna repeated.

“Oh NO.”

Refastening the bag with hurried, clumsy movements, Blinky scuttled backwards, practically falling flat off the stool and onto his ill-gotten prize.

“I’m very sorry but I,” he twitched towards the market thoroughfare, already halfway through the proverbial door, “have seem to have found myself in—in a spot of trouble-- goodbye!”

Johanna let the odd little whelp escape. “Good bye,” she said to nothing.

“Are you leavin’, then?” She shifted her attention to the cook, who had been watching the bizarre exchange with naked curiosity.

“No. Make cat.”

The cook swore, and the corners of Johanna’s mouth turned up in a quiet smile.  

Some time later, chewing on charred meat, she pondered if she’d ever meet Blinky again. He was a walking talking headache inducer, yes, but… no, she didn’t think she’d mind. If only, she thought, to find out what he’d done with his stolen prize when the consequences caught up to him.

No, she wouldn’t mind at all.

**Author's Note:**

> blinky and dictatious are the troll equivalent of middle schoolers, and #lore but dictatious was watching the first half of this from the rooftops and laughing his dumb little ass off. blinky proceeded to empty his novelty jars of seawater for a temporary tank for tub, who exists because i needed to make at least one joke involving tentacles. i would have made a crack about """static dens""" if even gramophones had been invented yet, which they have not. damn you 15th century engineering. 
> 
> if jim hadn't dodged the "inheriting kanjigar's spooky ghost house" bullet by virtue of being human draal literally would have killed him.
> 
> my friend belle @mimikqt is much cleverer then i am and contributed some of the dialogue. <3 u, belle


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